A song that endures
Monday, November 23, 2009 at 03:44PM 
Bark BirdLast Sunday morning around eight thirty I was perched on the edge of my bed, peering into a makeup mirror, applying cosmetics.
You know ... getting ready for church.
Although very cool and rainy weather conditions had been forecast, the morning was actually mild and half-heartedly sunny.
Consequently I had thrown open a window to enjoy the day.
Because I also like to keep avenues of inspiration wide open, I was listening (notice I didn't say "watching" ... I cannot watch television while simultaneously doing justice to the application of pirate eyeliner; that requires enormous skill and perhaps even the presence of Ve Neill, which was not an option) to my favorite cable television station: Turner Classic Movies.
Al Jolson is no Cary Grant.
(If my TV's not tuned to that station, invariably it's on Fox News, but I'd reached DEFCON 3 on the discouraging-events-combined-with-mindless-fluff-o-meter while watching Fox & Friends earlier that morning.)
TCM's flick-of-the-mo was an Al Jolson musical from 1933: Hallelujah, I'm A Bum!
Yeah. Sometimes anything beats harking to the perky purveyors of pessimism peopling the only news outlet I consider nominally useful.
The upside to Hallelujah, I'm a Bum! being the featured film was the fact that I was not even vaguely tempted to look away from the serious business of appearance-augmentation to the TV screen across the room.
Unlike, say, if Cary Grant had been the leading man instead of Al Jolson.
(Although I love it when he sings My Mammy in blackface, Al Jolson is no Cary Grant. Al Jolson's not even Claude Rains, and I'm not compelled to gander at him either.)
But I shamelessly digress, and I didn't even get to mention Johnny Depp.*
There's a point to this whole thing, and here it comes.
During one of the many (quite good) musical numbers punctuating the snappy Depression-era dialog of Hallelujah, I'm A Bum! (which was disturbingly germane to current events, but that's another subject) there came the loudly insistent song of an unusually energetic songbird.
One that had spent zero time in soup lines or on hobo trains. One that was still well-shod and full of youthful enthusiasm.
He sang and sang and sang his little heart out, until seriously I was about to adjust the volume because his voice was that piercing.
And then it happened.
Another hyperactive bird began singing ... from the leafy confines of an autumn-flowering bush just outside my window.
I almost dropped my brand-new shu uemura eyelash curler.
(The one that, should push come to shove, I would not trade for the last loaf of bread on earth unless my grandchildren were hollow-eyed with starvation and beseeching me to feed them.)
It sounded for all the world as though the real-live bird outside my window was attempting to communicate with the bird whose voice was no more than a digitally-remastered soundtrack emanating from my television set.
The birds retreated to wherever they go to ride out cold, dark, wet days, and fell silent.
The movie bird sang; the real bird answered. Then they sang in unison before repeating the cycle.
A song issuing from the tiny beak, the minuscule throat, of a three-ounce ball of feathers that has been dust for more than three-quarters of a century, was inspiring all-out joyous cacophony by a very-much-alive avian citizen perched a few feet away in my yard.
It was touching and cute and special, but it was more than that. It was beautiful.
And I was reminded that although earthly voices are often stilled with terrifying suddenness, the song we sing during the brief time we are here will be heard and continued by someone, in some way -- often poignantly and unexpectedly -- long after we are gone.
Long after we have lost either the ability to hear or the wherewithal to respond.
Which means that our duties, our obligations, our goals, our each and every quotidian pursuit -- no matter how banal, how seemingly insignificant -- should be carried out not only with eternity in view, but with future generations constantly in mind.
The rain arrived as promised, deluge-style, a few hours later. The birds retreated to wherever they go to ride out cold, dark, wet days, and fell silent. A gloomy pall persisted all the afternoon and into the night.
Droplets of wind-driven rain were still being hurled relentlessly against the now-closed window as my own eyes closed in sleep.
But the last thing I thought about before drifting away was that long-ago happy birdcall and the present-day hopeful reply.
And I considered once more the amazing resilience and time-transcending relevance of a message carried abroad via the strong, sweet, ineffable force of a song that endures.
*No link required.
Reader Comments (4)
OH..! That is just so sweet...: ) I'm glad you got to witness that. Sweet little birdies.
Imagine if you'd gotten a tree full to sing along ;-)
Sometimes life is just so sweet and unexpected. Such serendipitious blessings. (I had to laugh about your eyelash curler, though. My eyelashes have been left to their own devices since I was a young teen and tried mascara for the first time. I applied it carefully, put my glasses on, blinked, and my eyelashes left long, black streaks down and then back up the insides of my glasses lenses. Yikes! I guess if i'd just curled them first, they wouldn't have been so long, lol!)
@ Audrey ... I know; right?
@ SF ... THAT would have been STUPENDOUS~!
@ Tracie ... LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL that's hysterical! I do like me long, black, pirate fringe!